this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023

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Sega calls video games that use blockchain technology 'boring' (gamerkick.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

60 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Shuji Utsumi, Sega’s co-CEO, comments in a new statement that there is no point in implementing blockchain technology if it doesn’t make games ‘fun’.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 year ago

Based Sega

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Hopefully block chain technology will die off and become irrelevant in a couple of years. So far any attempt at using it seems to make a dumpster fire.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's cause the way its been presented to the public stinks and caters to bag holders.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It just in general is pretty bad, for most use cases a traditional relational database is just ... better

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Blockchain is just a spicy linked list

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Database being a singular entity, holding up all the information, can be prone to manipulation. In case of game assets, while a person won't consider it as an investment (or valuable), it is pointless to use a blockchain to restore the integrity of that database.

All the pseudo hype surrounding the NFT, have given these gaming companies an inspiration to monetize their in-game asset, to stay relevant and sustain their business. Just because of that stupid vision, the gamer are in conflict.

I personally despise all these whale trades hyping up NFT by buying stupid jpegs, where at its core functionality, it can be quite useful.

Gaming may or may not find its use in blockchain, but the crypto innovation hasn't come across a level to be a part of the gaming industry.

No doubt its boring.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Database being a singular entity, holding up all the information, can be prone to manipulation.

I agree with most of what you said, but I just wanted to add... Nothing is beyond manipulation, there's plenty of experience out there monitoring traditional databases, and software intended to aid in tracking down tampering retroactively:

https://severalnines.com/blog/how-to-audit-postgresql-database/

Not to mention you can implement things in your application to make it even harder for a single person to tamper with the database (arguably somewhat block chain inspired), e.g.: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1683434/detecting-database-tampering-is-it-possible

Does a ("proper") block chain make it harder to tamper in the first place? Yes, in theory, but is the associated cost really worth it? (If you ask me, the number of times it's actually worth using a blockchain is a near zero number).

[+] [email protected] -15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can you actually argue this or are you just parotting what other people parrot on social media? Databases require trust between parties, for example, so that's one of many, many reasons they don't replace one of the use cases.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Can you actually argue this or are you just parotting what other people parrot on social media?

🙄

Databases require trust between parties, for example, so that’s one of many, many reasons they don’t replace one of the use cases.

Can you elaborate on how that's useful for a video game (or a "majority of use cases"/"in general") or "are you just parotting what other people parrot on social media?"

...

The block chain is only useful if you want a cooperative system that "trusts nobody"... And that's exceedingly rare (not to mention it's susceptible to attacks like the 51% attack ... which you can -- hilariously -- fix if the major stake holders in the chain decide to override the network and do what they want anyways).

There's no reason a video game needs a block chain, at all. The video game has a manufacturer, the video game's rewards are only going to be meaningful inside of that game and ecosystem. Valve's been running a store for CSGO for over a decade.

If you want federation... Lemmy is federated, Matrix is federated, email is federated, and they all allow dodging a central authority in favor of smaller authorities without using a block chain. But even that isn't useful for a video game or publisher.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you hit the nail on the head that blockchain doesn’t really provide value to an in-game video game marketplace other than trying to inflate IAP prices off NFT hype.

I think that blockchain could have a purpose in a marketplace for lending/trading/reselling digital licenses to games but developers/publishers don’t want that. They want everyone to purchase new licenses.

There are other use cases outside of video games where blockchain makes more sense but a lot of them are people trying to make money off bag holders

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think that blockchain could have a purpose in a marketplace for lending/trading/reselling digital licenses to games but developers/publishers don’t want that. They want everyone to purchase new licenses.

Even here, I think you'd really find that under technical scrutiny, this would be a much harder sell vs just having a federated license transfer system between Sony, Microsoft, and Valve. Making it a block chain doesn't really "add value".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Have you heard of P2E (Play to Earn) model?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

The play to earn model is literally a ponzi scheme with a fancier name. The money you earn has to come from somewhere. It doesn't appear out of thin air. In 100% of P2E games, the earliest players get paid by the revenue from later players. Eventually, the game stops growing, so the later players are left holding the bag.

Obviously, some people make a lot of money in ponzi schemes (most notably, the people that start the ponzi scheme in the first place), but it's a terrible design for people that aren't the ponzi creators or the first adopters lucky enough to get in on the ground floor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

There are definitely good uses for blockchain in distributed/decentralized/zero-trust scenarios such as in logistics where you want to track a token as it passes hands through multiple carriers that’s definitely not something can be done as effectively done with a relational database as there is no real source of truth in that scenario.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And also the “games” are all about making real money “play2earn” instead of actually using blockchain in an interest way

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

"Play2Earn", also called a job.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

NFTs solve a problem for digital capitalism: they introduce artifical scarcity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This is mostly because when used properly, you often may not even realize you are using blockchain. For example, your browser is using a technology similar to blockchain to detect counterfeit https certificates. You probably don't even know about it yet it helps to keep you safe. That is how it should be used.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago

Why the scare quote around fun? He's right. There is no point in adding something to a game that doesn't make it more fun.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What do you mean you don't want to play a game that let you buy your own plot of land using blockchain? You'll get to experience almost real property ownership here.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What use outside of microtransactions would there be anyway?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Abusing low wage workers in Indonesia.

[+] [email protected] -20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Actually owning games, skins, guns, etc and being able to use them across games

Also resale

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh, so you have no idea how games work

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Blockchain only works if you completely ignore how anything works.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can actually own games by buying DRM-free. A DRM-free installer can be backed up and used forever, even offline, which is better than relying on blockchain verification.

Games are also better by having no microtransactions than by being able to resell some fictional sword from a lootbox. If I want to have the best weapons in Skyrim I can just cheat it instead of paying anyone for it. There is no point or benefit in attaching monetary value to individual instances of fictional digital game objects, because in the system of the game that's just some bits flipped, there aren't any production costs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

well one could argue that production costs aren't necessarily reflected in the product's final value, which is dictated by society (for its usefulness, desirability, status power, etc)

this is very evident precisely in fictional digital game objects, but in the online game context. a powerful item can give you advantages over other players and be very valuable but cost 0 to be created by the company. of course it's just a flipped bit nevertheless, but there's no way around to cheat and flip it at will

mmorpgs exist merely because of this concept. the whole level, skill, item grinding turns man-hours of work into bits in an authoritative server somewhere, and for that they have value. it's an amazing thing to watch

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I see how sociey goes and that's all the more reason I have no interest in financial speculation within games. In what way does the market of CS:GO skin trading makes the experience of playing it better?

MMORPGs also show that whenever item acquisition is not carefully controlled, it ruins the whole designed experience. Many MMOs were ruined by game economies getting out of control. If anything that is an argument for, whenever trading needs to be part of a game, it needs to be controlled. Therefore, remaining centralized is better for the game.

the whole level, skill, item grinding turns man-hours of work into bits in an authoritative server somewhere

You are not incorrect but that sentence gave me a gross shiver. LIke I was saying, I'm against games being treated as a job. This isn't "amazing", it's exploitation worming its way into our entertainment (even more than it already is on the creators' side).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

oh, don't get me wrong, I'm also all against the exchange of game items with real money (specially when it affects gameplay). in my view, you could only ever put 2 "real currencies" into a game: time or money. though everyone is roughly at the same playing field for time (I understand there's a contrast between a well off kid vs a hard worker adult) people are born with absurd differences in wealth, so much that the game itself becomes meaningless when that factor is introduced (the so called p2w).

when I say "amazing" I am talking about non-p2w mmorpgs - otherwise is just plain old capitalism hehe. the concept of grinding can be very interesting in the sense that it adds risk to the gameplay, in this case the risk of wasting time. basically all non-p2w games implement this risk in different ways: if you die in Mario it's the time to the start of the level/checkpoint (seconds), in WoW is time attributed to a few gold coins/respawn walk (minutes), in games like Tibia you lose 10% of all your progress (sometimes amounting to months/years). I've been a lifelong mmorpg player and one thing I realised is that the more you have to lose, the more thrilling the game becomes and the more immersive it gets (at a big cost, sometimes your own sanity).

I do agree with the things you and the Sega guys are bringing up. NFT and decentralisation of authority over game items allows that and doesn't add anything nice. imo, the only viable and fair monetisation for any game is retail and subscription models

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my view if it is important to the game that the players dedicate time, then there shouldn't be paid shortcuts. And if they want to give options to people who have less time, there's still no reason to tie it to money, it doesn't really help them. Any game that accepts real life money as a replacement for playtime is compromising its design for profit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

absolutely agreed

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The vast majority of companies out there would absolutely not support you actually owning a game or anything you buy in a game. They dont do it now, so why would they ever?

Even if blockchain was implemented, it would be implemented in a way the keeps the current status quo. Stuff would still be licensed and not yours.

Its very naive to expect otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a start, but hopefully they drop the idea altogether It's bad enough as it is, we don't need more.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

I can't conceive of a single fun use-case for blockchain in games. With any luck, neither can they.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Dreamcast Mini now sega let's go

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

As long as i get some Powerstone and Marvel VS Capcom on it then i'm good

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Water=wet

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

For the uninitiated, check out this YouTube channel to really see just how horrid blockchain games can get.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What games that using it anyway

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think Ubisoft( who else lol) released one not long ago.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

According to the wiki, that was a platform launched back in 2021, and it sounds like it didn't go well lol. And apparently squenix "said that they consider blockchain technology critical to their growth." LOL

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

This is more recent

And apparently squenix "said that they consider blockchain technology critical to their growth." LOL

Sigh, I miss Squaresoft.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The same ones that try push it ?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Introducing inequal crushing capitalist economy into your game... Just the escape from reality I needed 🙄

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